Promoters and other regulatory components from bacteria, viruses, fungi and animals have been used to control gene expression in animal cells. Numerous transformation experiments using DNA constructs comprising various promoter sequences fused to various foreign genes, such as bacterial marker genes, have led to the identification of useful promoter sequences.
The limitations of currently available eukaryotic promoters include the fact that they lack sufficient activity when used to induce expression of proteins, are too large to be packaged into adenoviral vectors for in vivo gene delivery, or succumb to promoter “turn-off” by inflammatory factors elaborated by the host. In addition, such promoters are often based on sequences obtained from viruses.
There is, therefore, an unmet need for a eukaryotic promoter that exhibits robust activity with several fold greater activity than the presently known promoters.